Ten aims for under-40s, who may not be watching

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More of the same ... CEO John McAlpine announces Ten's programs for the months ahead. Photo: Steven Siewert

Network Ten yesterday unveiled an unsurprising line-up of programs for the second half of the year but reiterated its plan to reclaim the number one position from Nine for audiences under 40 by year's end.

The posturing came as the Herald obtained findings from a confidential but long overdue TV industry report showing the extent to which the TV set is being used for non-broadcast viewing, particularly among the younger viewers that Ten's programming primarily targets .

The report, "Total TV Usage", from OzTAM, the ratings body owned by the TV networks, shows that DVDs, VCRs and games consoles account for 30 per cent of TV set usage during the day but that falls to an overall level of 20 per cent when peak viewing is included.

A decline in TV viewing among under-40-year-olds has been a serious concern among TV networks, advertisers and media buyers for several years but concerns heightened in the March quarter of last year when free-to-air broadcasters faced a sudden drop in viewing among audiences aged under 40, particularly men.

Media buyers and advertisers were sufficiently concerned to push for an explanation from the TV industry which has finally started to release the findings.

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OzTAM's chief, Kate Inglis-Clark, however, yesterday blocked the release of the report to the Herald. But according to insiders the report includes benchmark tracking figures showing that games consoles account for 5 per cent of overall TV usage time while VCRs account for 9 per cent and DVDs for 8 per cent. Industry players are not being shown historical figures on how usage patterns are changing although they are understood to be available.

The analysis is from the panel of homes used for the official OzTAM TV ratings and fitted with technology allowing the broadcasters to know when other devices are being used on TV sets.

"I don't think there's anything in that report which will rock the industry," said one observer. "There's no trends in there. Are the figures good, bad, down or up? We don't know. We can't trend it going back."

However, OzTAM will produce monthly analysis of how TV sets in its panel are being used, although whether the body will release the information is unclear.

OzTAM chairman, and the head of research at Ten, Doug Peiffer, said last night from the US that the findings were what he expected. "There's no surprises really," he said.

"Young people use the VCR and DVD more and mum uses the DVD as an electronic babysitter and for games. But it's good to have it out there so we can tell whether there's going to be anything to be alarmed about. For now, we still a have a healthy free-to-air TV environment."

More broadly, Ten chief executive officer John McAlpine yesterday brushed aside any attempt Seven might make to keep viewers from returning to Nine and Ten with a programming relaunch during its Olympic coverage.

"It's not a huge concern to us," he said. "We usually lose about 5 per cent of our market when the Olympics is on." He said the only point of broadcasting the Olympics was to make money, as the one-off boost in viewer numbers would be ignored by media buyers.

Ten's programs for the next six months include less than a handful of new shows - one of which is the Australian mini-series Jessica.